The Face of God

Perhaps the most difficult person to discover is ourselves. Learning to face the truth about ourselves and our places in the world can be frightening. Still, it’s something most of us need to do.

The Face of God depicts the spiritual transformation of a painter, Rolanda Tribault. Author Agnes Maria Trifontaine’s Tribault is the epitome of the American Dream. Everything she desires is obtainable. Her father, an influential attorney, has protected her from sorrows and vagaries, and she has learned to fill her time with distractions, so even a twitch of dissatisfaction can be ignored. But she has paid a price. She has lost her artistic vision and compensates by obsessively copying and recopying the face of God from one of Peter Paul Rubens’s paintings.

It has been said that we grow into true humanity by suffering. The Face of God shows how truthful that is. Like Rolanda, we can find our carefully constructed lives begin to unravel as we face unexplored memories and fears. But she—and we—can be transformed by the truth, if we have the courage to allow it to do so.